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Scorpio CFO reflects upon two decades of experience

Brian Lee reveals he ignored his sister’s advice to avoid shipping and launched a career that has closely tracked the path of Robert Bugbee

Brian Lee had his sights set on joining the former OMI Corp in 1998 when he got a little advice from his sister.

“I told her I was getting into shipping and she said, ‘don’t do it, it’s too volatile’,” he said, laughing.

The twist is that Lee’s sister already was working in software for SeaLand, the former US-based containership line.

She might have known a thing or two, Lee recalls thinking, as OMI’s share price soon afterward sank to $1.50 amid an oversupply of ships.

Lee can laugh now because he is 20 years into a shipping career, today serving as chief financial officer of Scorpio Tankers, the world’s largest product tanker company.

TradeWinds caught up with Lee recently at Noble Capital’s annual investor conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was making a relatively rare public appearance pitching to investors.

While some CFOs routinely speak on the conference circuit, Lee happens to work for Emanuele Lauro and Robert Bugbee — two charismatic, larger-than-life figures who excel at putting Scorpio’s best foot forward to the public, whether on financial matters or otherwise.

That means Lee may be one of shipping’s lowest-profile CFOs, although equity analysts also have told TradeWinds they consider him one of the best.

“Most of my time is still spent internally,” Lee acknowledged. “Robert’s forte is to be out there in the public markets. He’s learned all aspects of the business and he’s very eloquent in how he presents our story.”

Lee of course has seen Bugbee in action for a long time. Bugbee is the former president of OMI Corp, so Lee served under him and former OMI chief executive Craig H Stevenson Jr after choosing to ignore his sister’s advice.

Lee’s decision at the time did ultimately pay off. He signed on in the finance department — “I think I was about seventh in the chain-of-command” — and worked his way up to controller.

And while OMI struggled for a time and strained to gain traction with investors, the owner of suezmaxes and product carriers eventually rode a rising tanker market.

In 2007, it was able to sell for $2.2bn to Teekay Corp and Torm AS, earning handsome profits for investors and executives alike.

Lee worked his last day in February 2008 and took a year off.

“I didn’t know whether I’d ever work with Robert again or not,” Lee said. “I didn’t even know whether I would stay in shipping at that point.”

But the call came in the first quarter of 2009, and soon Lee was off to Monaco for six months to investigate work with the private Scorpio group.

Lauro also made Lee controller and then CFO of the private group, then CFO of Scorpio Tankers for its successful initial public offering in the spring of 2010. Lee added that he continued to have responsibility for the private Scorpio group as well.

The owner embarked on a massive newbuilding programme. Between that and the 2017 acquisition of Navig8 Product Tankers, it has built a modern fleet of 87 tankers ranging from MR1 to LR2 that was appraised at $2.8bn by VesselsValue.

The one thing Scorpio has not done is trade well. With a price around $2.50 in the past week, it is miles from its 2010 IPO pricing of $13.

Indeed, one annoyed investor who bought the stock above $5 asked Lee point-blank during the Noble session what Scorpio was going to do to “fix” its share price.

Scorpio cannot control the share price, but it has put itself in the best possible position to take advantage of the long-awaited market upturn, Lee said.

“One of the toughest things for me is to see people who have invested in us and it hasn’t worked yet,” Lee acknowledged.

“They believe in our story and they can’t understand why the stock is down. It affects them.

“We can only point out that we have a brand-new fleet, we’ve set it up for the anticipated market turn, and we should be in good shape at that point. Of course there are people who’ve thought that was going to happen for the last six months, so that’s been frustrating.

“The thing is, the math is there — eventually this is going to turn,” Lee said.

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Scorpio CFO reflects upon two decades of experience

Brian Lee reveals he ignored his sister’s advice to avoid shipping and launched a career that has closely tracked the path of Robert Bugbee

Brian Lee had his sights set on joining the former OMI Corp in 1998 when he got a little advice from his sister.

“I told her I was getting into shipping and she said, ‘don’t do it, it’s too volatile’,” he said, laughing.

The twist is that Lee’s sister already was working in software for SeaLand, the former US-based containership line.

She might have known a thing or two, Lee recalls thinking, as OMI’s share price soon afterward sank to $1.50 amid an oversupply of ships.

Lee can laugh now because he is 20 years into a shipping career, today serving as chief financial officer of Scorpio Tankers, the world’s largest product tanker company.

TradeWinds caught up with Lee recently at Noble Capital’s annual investor conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was making a relatively rare public appearance pitching to investors.

While some CFOs routinely speak on the conference circuit, Lee happens to work for Emanuele Lauro and Robert Bugbee — two charismatic, larger-than-life figures who excel at putting Scorpio’s best foot forward to the public, whether on financial matters or otherwise.

That means Lee may be one of shipping’s lowest-profile CFOs, although equity analysts also have told TradeWinds they consider him one of the best.

“Most of my time is still spent internally,” Lee acknowledged. “Robert’s forte is to be out there in the public markets. He’s learned all aspects of the business and he’s very eloquent in how he presents our story.”

Lee of course has seen Bugbee in action for a long time. Bugbee is the former president of OMI Corp, so Lee served under him and former OMI chief executive Craig H Stevenson Jr after choosing to ignore his sister’s advice.

Lee’s decision at the time did ultimately pay off. He signed on in the finance department — “I think I was about seventh in the chain-of-command” — and worked his way up to controller.

And while OMI struggled for a time and strained to gain traction with investors, the owner of suezmaxes and product carriers eventually rode a rising tanker market.

In 2007, it was able to sell for $2.2bn to Teekay Corp and Torm AS, earning handsome profits for investors and executives alike.

Lee worked his last day in February 2008 and took a year off.

“I didn’t know whether I’d ever work with Robert again or not,” Lee said. “I didn’t even know whether I would stay in shipping at that point.”

But the call came in the first quarter of 2009, and soon Lee was off to Monaco for six months to investigate work with the private Scorpio group.

Lauro also made Lee controller and then CFO of the private group, then CFO of Scorpio Tankers for its successful initial public offering in the spring of 2010. Lee added that he continued to have responsibility for the private Scorpio group as well.

The owner embarked on a massive newbuilding programme. Between that and the 2017 acquisition of Navig8 Product Tankers, it has built a modern fleet of 87 tankers ranging from MR1 to LR2 that was appraised at $2.8bn by VesselsValue.

The one thing Scorpio has not done is trade well. With a price around $2.50 in the past week, it is miles from its 2010 IPO pricing of $13.

Indeed, one annoyed investor who bought the stock above $5 asked Lee point-blank during the Noble session what Scorpio was going to do to “fix” its share price.

Scorpio cannot control the share price, but it has put itself in the best possible position to take advantage of the long-awaited market upturn, Lee said.

“One of the toughest things for me is to see people who have invested in us and it hasn’t worked yet,” Lee acknowledged.

“They believe in our story and they can’t understand why the stock is down. It affects them.

“We can only point out that we have a brand-new fleet, we’ve set it up for the anticipated market turn, and we should be in good shape at that point. Of course there are people who’ve thought that was going to happen for the last six months, so that’s been frustrating.

“The thing is, the math is there — eventually this is going to turn,” Lee said.